Match “Nairobi vs Crewe” 2023
18 members of Nairobi Chess Club (NCC) had the privilege to play an overseas online match against the prestigious Crewe Chess Club (CCC) from England. The match took place on March 12th.
In fact, it was the third match because both teams already played in 2021 and 2022 with two victories for Nairobi.
Both clubs met for the first time in February 2021 in an online match whose score favoured Nairobi (14-6).
After another defeat in 2022 (23,5 – 16,5), this year Crewe came really prepared for a revanche.
All games were played online on lichess using a time control of 25 min + 10 s increment.
The match consisted of 2 games/player and pairings were arranged according to FIDE and ECF (English Chess Federation) ratings.
The result of the match was 13-21 for Crewe Chess Club, which established an overall score of 2-1 for Nairobi.
Unfortunately, the match was not free of irregularities, mainly due to the inexperience of some players in this type of competition:
But all in all, the meeting took place in a friendly atmosphere and it was a useful learning experience.
Final Results
NAIROBI | 13 – 21 | CREWE |
Artem Gurevich | 1,5 – 0,5 | Simon Layhe |
Peter Gilruth | 2 – 0 | Karl Lockett |
Vasant Ramesh | 1,5 – 0,5 | Harry Gardiner |
Jay Naker | 0 – 2 | Danny McMenamin |
Willy Simons | 0 – 2 | Phil Seery |
Jackim Arigi | 2 – 0 | Richard Walsh |
Viacheslav Chvoro | 2 – 0 | David Lambton |
Sarthak Patnaik | 1 – 1 | Martin Frisher |
Reyansh Agarwal | 0 – 2 | Myron Odingo |
Suraj Shah | 0 – 2 | Lukasz Michalek |
Hiram Gakembu | 0 – 2 | George Bulbeck |
Sufian Nathani | 0 – 2 | James Marshall |
Collins Oduor | 0 – 2 | Tom Smith |
Johnmark Njaramba | 0 – 2 | Kobus Nienaber |
Cyril Teddy | 2 – 0 | Oskar Jarzynski |
Nandini Sardana | 0 – 2 | Pawel Stanny |
Aseem Sardana | 1 – 1 | Phil Grocott |
Dadson Rwamba | – – – | Christopher Marais |
All games of this match:
The huge expectation created by these matches has impelled both clubs to establish this match as an annual event in their calendars.
In 2009 NCC organized an online 6-board match against Wageningen Chess Club (The Netherlands) and established a milestone in international projection.
Now, 14 years later, and in an interval of 2 years, NCC has played 7 online international matches with more than 10 boards each time. The one against Crewe in 2022, breaking the record with 20 boards (!!)
Being founded in 1958, Nairobi Chess Club is the oldest chess club in East Africa, and also leader in approaching not only chess to people, but also approaching people through chess.